Publisher: Microsoft Press
Author(s): Dino Esposito
Categories: .NET, ASP.NET 2.0
Published: August 25, 2004
ISBN: 0–735–62024–5
Online Order Links: Amazon, BN.Com, …

Summary:

Going into this book, there are two things you have to remember.  The first is that this book was written and published before most of the other books on the subject and is based on Beta 1 material.  Maybe Dino will edit this book for a second edition, but everything may not be exactly the same as it was for this release. Secondly, this book is called “Introducing ASP.NET 2.0”, and not “Step by Step ASP.NET 2.0” for a reason.  This book shows the differences and enhancements from ASP.NET 1.x to ASP.NET 2.0.  If you can remember these two simple facts, you will find the book much more enjoyable.  At the time of this writing I was not able to find any corrections to the material in this book.  However, I have been told that some of the features written about have been changed from Beta 1 to Beta 2 and the final release when it comes out. 

I found this book to be great for learning the new topics of ASP.NET 2.0, but it is not for a beginner just looking to get started with ASP.NET.  I did enjoy the fact that there are comparisons of ASP, ASP 1.x and ASP 2.0.  This made it much easier for me to know what the differences were and reason behind them.  However, the flow of the book is not always easy to follow, and some of the topics are not discussed in-depth very well.  In those areas I tended to get lost in what Dino is explaining and I had to reread a couple of sentences.  The explanation of the topics and the step by step examples were usually very well written and easy to understand.  Dino’s does his best writing when he explains things using examples in this book.  The book is well worth the price and time that is involved in reading it.  I would recommend this book for anyone that knows about ASP.NET and needs to know the differences and how to use ASP.NET 2.0 components.  It is a good book to get you up to date.  The writing style in the book is not always as straightforward as it could be, but he gets the points across and makes them easy for you to try out.

I feel the book covered what it set out to cover which is to give developers a head start or introduction into ASP.NET 2.0.  Without a doubt, this book covered that and is one of the first books to come to the market about ASP.NET 2.0.  I don’t think you can hold it against the book that changes in the software were made between Beta 1 and Beta 2, as this fact is recognized and mentioned in the beginning of the book.  This book allows for developers and architects to plan for the future and to know what is coming soon.  Dino makes sure to cover topics that have a different approach and methodology than they used to in ASP.NET 1.x so that you can know how you might implement a problem using ASP.NET 2.0.  Dino does make sure you understand that in ASP.NET 2.0 there is less code and you use more controls in order to create web applications.  In fact, these chapters where he shows the new controls and how to use them are my favorite chapters.

Highlights from this book that I enjoyed most are: MasterPages, WebParts, Rich Web Controls, security logon and the DataSource controls that were covered.  These sections alone made the book worth the purchase.  He is able to show how a complicated or code heavy web application in ASP.NET 1.x is much simpler in ASP.NET 2.0.  Actually, there were not many chapters that I didn’t enjoy reading and that did not give me insightful information to ASP.NET 2.0.  If anyone is excited about ASP.NET 2.0 this book should keep you just as excited and get you ready to try out some of the new features in a short time span.  Now I would like to see a book by Dino on just the UI part, similar to the one he did for the Datagrid in ASP.NET 1.x “Building Web Solutions with ASP.NET and ADO.NET”.

I felt that the chapters on data access were not very clear and or straightforward.  The chapters went on too long for a simple introduction and tried to explain data access in too much detail for an ASP.NET book.

Overall I think that this is a great book for someone that is moving from ASP 1.x to ASP 2.0 and just wants to know what Microsoft is planning and how they are planning on implementing each feature.  If this book is not updated to reflect changes to ASP.NET 2.0 as it releases, I think people will start to turn to other books because of the many differences between the release and the beta this book was written from.  If you want an in depth look at ASP.NET 2.0 this book will probably not cover everything you want from beginning to end, but it is a great book for the topics I needed as a developer ready to see ASP.NET 2.0.

This book is most useful to:

• web designers / developers that know how to use ASP.NET 1.1 but want to know just the new features of ASP.NET 2.0
• Technical decision makers that need to know what the technology can do
• experienced web developers looking to get a jump on things by learning about ASP.Net 2.0 before it is released

Recommendation:

4 out of 5 stars

If you want a book that covers only ASP.NET 2.0 this is a good book to start with.  The size of the book and content that is covered will get you up to speed on the new features of ASP.NET 2.0.  This book was written based on Beta 1 so make sure that you realize that some content of the book may have changed. 

This book will take you less than a week, and will get you up to speed on ASP.NET 2.0 concepts.  You will also see that he compares some of the changes to the way it is done in ASP.NET 1.x or ASP which will help you understand some of the uses of the new features.

-- Brendon Schwartz

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